IPv6 support on Virgin media

[dgcarter]

Does anyone know whether (and if so when) Virgin plan to implement IPv6 on its network?

[jem101]

I'm certainly not going to comment on what other posters say or claim with little foundation or basis. However you do seem to be fixated on an idea that VM's technical department is staffed with people who are simply unable or incapable of understanding how IPv6 works or how to implement it. Now unless you either work at VM or happen to know the technical expertise of the staff there - you're as guilty of making stuff up as anyone else!

Ask yourself this, what's most likely to be the case;

a) VM have deliberately employed engineers who are all incompetent or woefully ignorant of IPv6 for what ever reason but at the same time can keep the rest of the system working (well mostly working) 

or

b) VM have made a business decision that they simply don't need to implement an IPv6 solution now as they have sufficient IPv4 addresses available to satisfy current and immediate future need. The number of VM users who will even know what IPv6 is, is infinitesimally tiny - and the number who would gain any benefit from it is even smaller.

Would you rather they rushed to implement a similar situation to the one they inherited in Ireland? DSLite which precludes you putting the hub in modem mode and using your own equipment? But still they've got IPv6 so everything's good yes?

John

[MikeRobbo]

In simple terms what is IPv6 ?

I think it is the IP number using 6 pairs not 4 as used currently.

[ksim]

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@MikeRobbo wrote:

In simple terms what is IPv6 ?

I think it is the IP number using 6 pairs not 4 as used currently.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv6

[ksim]

> a) VM have deliberately employed engineers
yes, buy cheap, get crap.

> VM have made a business decision that they simply don't need to implement an IPv6 solution now as they have sufficient IPv4 addresses available to satisfy current and immediate future need.

limit of IPv4 addresses is not a reason not to implement IPv6, IPv6 has a lot of other benefits.

> Would you rather they rushed to implement a similar situation to the one they inherited in Ireland?

LG has implemented IPv6 in many countries already, do not see their userbase going down because of that, and yes, would rather see DS-Lite, than IPv4 only.

[jem101]

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@ksim wrote:

> a) VM have deliberately employed engineers
yes, buy cheap, get crap.

Speculation based on no evidence at all then!

> VM have made a business decision that they simply don't need to implement an IPv6 solution now as they have sufficient IPv4 addresses available to satisfy current and immediate future need.

limit of IPv4 addresses is not a reason not to implement IPv6, IPv6 has a lot of other benefits.

Such as? Care to say what these are? Oh and please don't just include 'no need to employ NAT' without saying why this is advantageous.

> Would you rather they rushed to implement a similar situation to the one they inherited in Ireland?

LG has implemented IPv6 in many countries already, do not see their userbase going down because of that, and yes, would rather see DS-Lite, than IPv4 only.

Of course their user base isn't going down, know why? Because for the vast, vast majority of users IPv6 is a complete irrelevance. Really; you would give up the ability to put the VM hub into modem mode just to gain the holy grail of IPv6 connectivity?

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[ksim]

> Speculation based on no evidence at all then!
Try to talk with them, I did.

> Such as?

is google not available over ipv4 for you?
Security and end-to-end encryption are some of the major ones, NAT also, I have tons of devices/services I want to access in my home/or they require external access, and the absence of NAT is a major one.

> Because for the vast, vast majority of users IPv6 is a complete irrelevance.

The vast majority do not care about even being behind NAT, that's why as a service provider I have to implement tons of stupid **bleep** proxies/forwarding rules to not throw away VM customers using my services.

> Really; you would give up the ability to put the VM hub into modem mode just to gain the holy grail of IPv6 connectivity?

Really

[MikeRobbo]

I for one of probably millions of other users didn't know about IPV6 until I saw it mentioned on here and to be honest I don't care. What I have is good enough for me and when the time comes when IPV6 is actually needed I am sure that it will be implemented.

[ravenstar68]

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@MikeRobbo wrote:

In simple terms what is IPv6 ?

I think it is the IP number using 6 pairs not 4 as used currently.

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IPv6 stands for Internet Protocol version 6.  IPv5 was an experimental multimedia protocol that never got off the ground (in case anyone wants to know where that went).

IPv4 uses 32 bits (4 bytes) to represent an internet address.  This gives a theoretical maximum of around 4 billion IP addresses.
IPv6 on the other hand uses 128 bits to represent an internet address giving a theoretical maximum of 3.4 x 10^17 addresses.  

HOWEVER - due to the way IPv6 is set up the minimum size of a single subnet is 64 bits.

Regarding NAT

NAT was never designed to be a firewall.  NAT and RFC1918 addressing was all about making IPv4 last longer until it's successor was implemented.  While NAT can appear to take the place of a stateful firewall it can cause issues when it comes to looking for security issues as it's impossible to tell which individual device on a NAT'ed IP address has sent traffic.  Everything appears to come from the same public IP.

Regarding DS-Lite

To those who say they'd happily go with DS-Lite, unless you are a basic user who ONLY surfs the net and watches Netflix or youtube, you really don't want to go down that rabbit hole.

Tim

[ravenstar68]

Sorry my maths was off earlier

2^128 = 3.4*10^38 potential IPv6 addresses

[legacy1]

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@ravenstar68 wrote:

Regarding DS-Lite

To those who say they'd happily go with DS-Lite, unless you are a basic user who ONLY surfs the net and watches Netflix or youtube, you really don't want to go down that rabbit hole.

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Yes DS-Lite is evil.

Problems VM face is:

1.Can IPv6 work in modem mode along with 1 IPv4 on 3rd party routers that is standard for all ISP.

2.Even in router mode their will need to be a firewall to block inbound traffic with rules to allow given traffic and allow all outbound traffic without issue.